


so break your back and take a chance

by transvav



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: GTA AU, M/M, also franz says hi, gav's a hacker, minor character death but not much, ryan's a merc, wowza lots of words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 06:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3639741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transvav/pseuds/transvav
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Right terrible nosebleed you’ve got there, isn’t it?”<br/>Okay, he thought to himself, this kid is either blissfully innocent, willingly ignorant, or intelligently naive about this.<br/>There’s no way that the amount of blood on his shirt could come from a nosebleed- well. Maybe from this guy’s nose- so it’s definitely one of the three.<br/>There was also the glaringly obvious fault of being a complete idiot, but Ryan gave his new neighbor the benefit of the doubt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so break your back and take a chance

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to molly, aka gay-vin-free, for the wonderful prompt- this got really out of control really quickly and i had way too much fun doing it. thanks babe!  
> there's mentions of minor character death but that's the extent of terrible things i suppose.

This was the worst timing in the world, if Ryan had to be honest.  
There was a moving van right outside his apartment building, which meant a new neighbor, which meant someone else who’d be questioning him for everything he had- job, family, lifestyle-  
Why there was blood all over the front of his shirt, a bit on his face. This was going to be terrible.  
He made his way in through the front door and quickly dashed towards the stairs, avoiding the movers and various other people in the lobby. He climbed upwards, two at a time, nervously glancing around.   
When he reached his floor, he slammed the door open and went out into the hall, heading quickly towards his door, looking back occasionally to make sure no one followed him-  
  
As cliches seem to go, he bumped straight into the person he really didn’t want to meet.

He ran headfirst into some kid who was carrying some type of camera case, which he fumbled with in his hands for a few seconds before retaining the grip on it and clutching it closely to his chest. “Oh, lord.”  
“Sorry,” Ryan said quickly. “Didn’t see you there.”  
“Oh, no, it’s fine, I wasn’t looking either,” the other replied, and Ryan noted the accent in his voice. Suddenly, he looked up at Ryan, and there was a nervous look about him that quickly transformed into something of disgust mixed with concern. He stood up, looking Ryan over, and Ryan prepared for worst.

“Right terrible nosebleed you’ve got there, isn’t it?”  
 _Okay,_ he thought to himself, _this kid is either blissfully innocent, willingly ignorant, or intelligently naive about this._  
There’s no way that the amount of blood on his shirt could come from a nosebleed- well. Maybe from this guy’s nose- so it’s definitely one of the three.  
There was also the glaringly obvious fault of being a complete idiot, but Ryan gave his new neighbor the benefit of the doubt.  
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “It was pretty bad.”  
“Do you want a towel or something- or, no, wait, those are still packed, sorry,” the man gave a sheepish grin. “You live on this floor, then?”  
“Yeah,” Ryan repeated. “Apartment 323.”  
“Apartment 324, right across the hall from you!” the newcomer chirped excitedly, and Ryan nearly winced at the loudness in his tone. “Guess I should introduce myself. I’m Gavin.”  
“Ryan,” he muttered, nodding once, then begrudgingly shaking the other’s hand. “I’m gonna go get... cleaned up now. Take care.”  
“Bye, Ryan! Talk to you later!” Gavin called out as he walked further down the hall, and Ryan sighed heavily.  
“Better hope you don’t, kid.”

* * *

The second he closed the apartment door behind him, Ryan pulled his shirt up and dropped it into the trash can directly by the door. He opened the laptop on the dining room table, turning it on and typing in the password quickly before going towards his bathroom for a quick shower.  
A few minutes later and Ryan came back out, shaking his hair around with a towel. He draped the towel on the back of his chair and sat down, pulling his laptop towards him and opening Skype.

_It’s done. [sent at 6:47 P.M.]_

He relaxed back into his chair, keeping his eyes closed and relaxing for a while, doing his best to ignore the noises of Gavin moving next door. After a bit, the sounds subsided into the low thrum of the ceiling fan above him and a soft whirring noise from his computer, and the buzz of the cars passing in the street. He waited for a reply.  
Ryan didn’t often do every kill asked of him- there had to be reasoning behind it, a set and specific goal. And pay. There was always the pay.  
If it was a revenge or family matter kill, the cost went up. If someone was to be framed, or if the kill had to look like something else, that was another simple raise. Most of Ryan’s employers were nervous little men and women who didn’t have the balls to do what he did, but they were rich. And they weren’t planning on getting caught, so they pinned the blame on someone else. Every time, he had to put in a little extra work to make it look like suicide, or like a mafia kill. He never got the credit for those kills.  
Except for this employer.  
Ryan had no name for him, but he was, out of all his employers, the most regular, the cheapest, and the only one who stayed within a strict moral zone. It was always drug dealers and serial killers and other various criminals that he was hired to kill from this one. Never any extra work involved.   
Just one and done.  
It always made the news, and Ryan was happy when his employer stayed in contact for the next kill. I liked how you did that, he would be told, and Ryan, filled with some strange need to please this complete stranger, always upped the game. He got a thrill of pride because this one was okay with him being a little bit ‘creative.’ Most of them thought of him as disgusting- this employer never had.

The sound of a received message brought him out of his thoughts, and he cracked an eye open to look down at the computer screen.

_Nice job._   
_It’s always nice to know I can count on you for this, Vagabond. [received at 7:17 PM]_

Ryan smiled to himself, leaning forward a little and placing his hands on the keyboard. The hovered there as he tried to think of what to say- the conversations they had were always a little fun and engaging, and if neither of them had any restraint, Ryan would have believed that they would probably end up going a bit too far from their current professional relationship.

_I take it you liked my message? [sent at 7:18 PM]_   
_The little bloody heart was adorable. Did you mean it? [received at 7:19 PM]_   
_What? The whole ‘love you thing?’_   
_It’s up to you._   
_Did you want me to mean it? [sent at 7:20 PM]_   
_Goodnight, Ryan. [received at 7:22 PM]_

Ryan sat back and sighed. Maybe he had gone a little far? Strictly professional, he thought to himself. What a load of shit.  
If this wasn’t going anywhere, though, Ryan decided that it was fine. Eventually this employer wouldn’t be here, and there’d be no little fling between them, and everything would be normal and it wouldn’t feel weird to go to a bar and hit on people and feel like he was cheating.  
He didn’t even know the guy’s name.  
But he knew the mannerisms and the way that the man asked strangely philosophical questions that were highly intelligent- there was something about him that Ryan so desperately wanted to know so much about.   
For another day, perhaps. Ryan shut his laptop down and went off to his bedroom, falling backwards onto the bed and yawning, slipping off to sleep.

 

“Good morning, Ryan!”  
The chipper british voice grated on his ears but he turned with a tired smile anyways, just to be nice. The first thing he noticed was the wild mess on the other’s head had not changed in the past few weeks, and then the eyes that seemed to shine way too brightly this early in the morning. Gavin’s grin seemed wholehearted while he watched Ryan unlock his mailbox, pulling out a few junk letters and various other papers.  
“Morning,” he finally replied, leaning against the little countertop near the boxes and sorting through his mail. He tried to look disinterested, hoping it would put the kid off-  
“What are you doin’ up?”  
Shit. Ryan sighed as he started slapping the pile of letters against his open palm and rolled his eyes. “Had a hard time sleeping, I guess. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. What about you?”  
“Ah,” Gavin laughed nervously and gave a half-shrug. “Pretty much the same deal, I guess.”

There was a few seconds of silence in which Ryan took a good, long look at the younger man in front of him. It’d been about a month since Gavin had moved in across the hall, and most nights there wasn’t much Ryan heard when he came home late from various jobs. The loudest it ever seemed to be was when there were sounds of digital guns and other various dialogues from the Halo franchise. Now, as Ryan glanced him over, Gavin looked uncomfortable, tired, out of place. Something in his face betrayed how nervous he was, how awkward he felt. There were bags under his eyes and he looked sorta pale and just overall exhausted, and, however out of character it seemed normally, Ryan felt a pang of something akin to compassion. He felt bad for this kid and he didn’t quite know why, because this- humans- made him uncomfortable.  
Still... he had to try sometime.  
“Hey, do you have anyone to like, I don’t know, hang out with or whatever?”  
Gavin looked up, surprise evident in his face. “N-no? Not really. Everyone I know is sorta busy all the time, and I just moved from England, so...”  
“Well then. If you need to talk or whatever, I’m right across the hall.”  
Ryan pushed himself away from the mailboxes and nodded once to Gavin, who stood frozen in place. “Oh, and for the record,” Ryan said, pausing in front of the stairs to turn back to the younger man. “I do play video games, if you’d like.”  
Then he faced forward once more and began to climb the stairs to the third level, smiling to himself and leaving a very shell-shocked Brit behind.

* * *

_Making friends?_  
_He seems kinda nice._  
_Oooh, does the Vagabond have a crush?  
_ _*gasp* Ryan! Are you cheating on me??? [received at 3:45 AM]_

Ryan hadn’t answered that.

He hadn’t taken a job from the employer in quite some time- but he had been spending quite a lot of time with Gavin, who’d managed to endear himself to Ryan rather quickly, with stupid and silly questions and variously enraging arguments about probability (they’d almost gotten kicked out of the building with how loud they’d argued over those stupid coins). Gavin was also unbelievably terrible at video games and Ryan would laugh at the stupid mistakes he’d make in-game.   
Mornings were routine as well. Get up, go downstairs, and somehow find Gavin already there before him, wearing the same large grin and still way too overly-cheerful look in his eyes. They’d talk for a while before Gavin would bid him farewell and head out the front door while someone in a bright silver sports car would be loudly honking the horn. “Jesus, Michael, shut up!” Ryan would hear Gavin yell, and then he’d turn and go right back up the stairs to check if he had any messages requesting his services.  
He usually didn’t sleep, mostly doing his jobs in the middle of the night, and when he was done, insomnia would do it’s own thing and keep him awake the rest of the night- most of the night spent thinking about how amazing Gavin really was, how everything just seemed to fit with him and how this was probably the first human being Ryan had even interacted with in a very long time that (so far) hadn’t ended up in someone’s violent death. He hadn’t really thought much about what that meant, though.  
And then that message had come in.  
And his stomach dropped but simultaneously jumped into his throat, and everything became sort of numb and tingly at the same time because oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.  
He liked Gavin.  
He had a huge, gaping, high school crush on this idiot, and it’d only been two weeks of being friends for that to happen.  
I have so many problems, he thought to himself as he read the message when it came in on his phone, shutting the bright screen off and slumping his head further into the pillow and groaning. There was nothing between them- and if he got involved with Gavin, then that would probably end up into telling him what he actually did, and who knows how that would end.

_It’s just because he’s cute_ , Ryan reasoned with himself later on in the morning at a better hour. _His personality is alright but this is only because he’s cute. Which won’t end well. This will not become an actual thing._

_I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. [sent at 9:23 AM]_   
_I wouldn’t mind. We’re not a thing, Ryan._   
_I’m not yours. You’re not mine._   
_This is all just fun. So be happy. [received at 10:46 AM]_

That weighed heavily in his mind for a while.

* * *

 

Ryan learned that Gavin was a slow-motion cinematographer.  
They watched a few of the movies he’d worked on one night, but it had very quickly dissolved into “who could catch the most popcorn kernels in their mouth” contest, and by the end of the movie there was popcorn everywhere and Gavin was a giggling mess on the floor while Ryan chanted “I win! I win!” over and over again, jumping up and down on the couch and nearly hitting his head on the ceiling, prompting Gavin into another fit of hysterics.

Ryan finally sat down, lightheaded and smiling brightly down at the Brit who was rolling on the floor, giggling at everything. There might have been a tiny bit of alcohol involved on Gavin’s end of things, an empty bottle or two or three scattered on his coffee table that was pushed to the side to make room for any escapades that had the potential to end terribly.

Gavin eventually climbed up to the couch and slumped sideways to rest on Ryan’s shoulder, smiling brightly. “You’re _lovely,_ Ryan.”  
“Thank you very much Gavin,” the elder hummed. “You’re not too bad yourself.”  
“I mean it, Ryan. You’re very wonderful.”  
“You too, Gavin.”  
“I really like you, Ryan. Like you lots and lots.”

There was a moment of silence before Gavin’s weight on his shoulder became considerably heavier as the younger man drifted off, snoring a tiny bit and curling up even closer to Ryan, who was going through a very considerable crisis at the moment.  
He wasn’t in any relationship- the employer was the first person that came to mind, and then he realized, it was nothing. Nothing between them- just flirty fun. And it was nothing more.  
His phone felt like a terrible reminder in his pocket for just a split second before he let it go and looked back to Gavin sleeping on him.   
It wasn’t his looks, he happily told himself, feeling something relax in his mind. Because yes, Gavin’s nose was a bit oversized, but his eyes seemed to make up for it and his hair was in a constant fluffy mess that made Ryan want to reach out and just pet it down, even knowing it wouldn’t stay. Gavin was attractive in a certain way.  
And then there was Gavin’s overall Gaviness that made Ryan smile.  
It was in the way Gavin didn’t change his routine in any way, the way that Gavin didn’t bother him about his personal life. Every conversation was the same but different and engaging and it often times ended up making Ryan laugh or contemplate the various questions that were proposed. Every single time they talked, Ryan enjoyed himself. Enjoyed the way Gavin laughed with him, the words he said, the pitch of his voice raising when he was offended or distressed. How Gavin didn’t let anything truly affect him, seemingly.  
Ryan contemplated this all for a while as he drifted off leaning against Gavin.  
Maybe he could try.

He woke up to the feeling of Gavin rolling off of him and a pained groan. Opening his eyes a tiny bit, he saw Gavin stumble and almost run into the coffee table, mumbling expletives under his breath as he moved towards the hall where the bathroom was, an undignified squawk escaping him when the lights hit his eyes too brightly.  
Ryan yawned, stretching and lifting himself up off the couch and moving to the tiny kitchen area. He turned on the water and began splashing his face, rubbing his eyes a bit to help him wake up. He grabbed a glass from Gavin’s cabinets, filling it with water, and then made his way to the bathroom with it.  
Gavin was slumped in the corner that connected the shower to the wall, leaning his head against the cold tile and groaning slightly.   
“You don’t hold alcohol well in the morning, do you?” Ryan whispered, and Gavin lifted his head and smiled softly at the sight of the glass in Ryan’s hand. He reached out for it, sitting up a little bit to sip at it. Ryan smiled back and brushed Gavin’s hair from his face.   
“I don’t take alcohol well ever if I have too much.”  
“Do you-”  
“Yeah.”  
“Did you?”  
Gavin grinned brightly and pulled Ryan a little closer, bumping noses with him and grinning. “Hell yeah I did. Do you want to?”  
Ryan brushed their lips together briefly in answer, and Gavin giggled quietly. “I’d like to, yes.”  
Gavin kissed him again, actually kissed him this time, and Ryan returns the kiss for a little bit before pulling back and making a face. “You taste like vomit,” Ryan muttered, and Gavin laughed and sipped at his water.

* * *

 

Gavin kept his boundaries with Ryan, not asking too much about his job or ever going into his apartment (which was good, because Ryan was not the cleanest of killers and there was blood everywhere- his employer had been busy making enemies that needed to be gone). Ryan didn’t ask much about Gavin’s job either- slow motion cinematography wasn’t a day to day job, and there was no need for Gavin to act as such- but it wasn’t any of his business, so he kept his mouth shut and continued to hang out with him in his apartment.  
Most nights ended up with the two of them sharing the couch, Gavin falling asleep really quickly and easily every time, recently becoming exhausted enough to fall asleep early on in their nights together. Ryan himself couldn’t blame the younger man- he was tired with the recent influx of requests from his employer. A new gang was making a name in the city and Ryan could only assume that the employer was working for or against them- random people were being accused in the inner workings of these gangs, and Ryan was taking them out one by one with generous pay. The work was strenuous and left him somewhat physically drained, and he got a few hours of sleep in during the day before he went across the hall to Gavin’s.  
“Maybe we should actually go on a date some time,” was an offhand suggestion by the Brit one night as they watched an old rerun show on TV, eating enchiladas that Ryan had made (Gavin was ecstatic when he discovered Ryan could cook and had insisted on him doing so).   
The older looked at him, narrowing his eyes, and then gave him a half-smile. “Yeah,” he murmured, pulling Gavin close to his side. “Go out to dinner on Friday?”  
Gavin curled up closer to him, nodding against him and Ryan dropped a kiss to the top of his head, humming thoughtfully, then turning back to the rerun and not saying another word the rest of the night.

The dinner place they chose was small and quiet, close to the middle of downtown but still in relative walking distance within the apartment complex. Gavin laughed and made jokes all night, sneaking food from Ryan’s plate and giggling when Ryan made soft noises of protest whenever he did so. They told stories all night, laughing and grabbing each other hands under the table, and when the went silent, they just smiled.  
Ryan couldn’t remember ever being so happy.  
There was a warmth in his chest that he couldn’t explain as anything other than just pure fucking love for this idiot across the table from him. Every time Gavin smiled, laughed, looked at him, squeezed his hand, even just spoke- it was like Ryan couldn’t breathe, and oh boy, this was an issue. He was in deep, really deep, which would come back and bite him in the ass later, sure thing, no doubt, but oh god was Gavin an adorable fuck that Ryan wanted to protect with his life.

Was he rushing into this? He might have been rushing into this.   
But the way Gavin managed to have this hold over him was undeniable and Ryan had decided to do nothing about it. He decided to go with the flow and just give all he had to his job and this kid. He found a balance.  
  
So, naturally, it went to shit.

* * *

Three months into their relationship and everything was going as well as it could be. 

Ryan came home late in the night (early in the morning) and heard Gavin cursing out at something- Ryan’s first thought was the people on the other side of the xbox, but there was a sudden scream of anguish and a “BLOODY FUCKING PC BULLSHIT” emitting from the door and Ryan laughed to himself. Despite his reluctance and uncertainty in the situation, he knocked on his boyfriend’s door, and everything went instantly silent.  
“Gav?”  
“Ry?”  
The door opened and Gavin sheepishly looked out at him. “What are you doin’ up so early?”  
“I could ask the same of you,” Ryan replied, nudging the door open and slipping into the apartment. “Computer troubles?”  
“Ah, yeah,” Gavin laughed, closing the door behind him. “But I’ve- you don’t need to do anything-”  
“Nonsense,” Ryan answered, placing a kiss to his forehead and moving over to the computer on the other side of the room. “I’m good at this, don’t worry.”  
“Alright...” Gavin said quietly, sounding a bit hesitant and awkward. “I’ll- make you some tea, or something. Might take a bit.”  
He disappeared into the kitchen, and Ryan spared a quick thought on Gavin’s apprehensiveness about the current situation before he sighed and got to work. He began fixing up the hard drive, clearing off somewhat unimportant things- it was a quick fix, he noted to himself, and once it was done he decided not to alert Gavin that he was finished and he began to go through the files on the computer.  
Various criminals began appearing on the screen- they were all faces he’d seen before, and records were coming up with them. Wanted for murder, drug trade, kidnapping, theft, robbery, association with criminal gangs. All of them read ‘eliminated.’ All of them were dead. A suspicion began to swirl in his gut.   
There was one last file on the computer, and hesitantly, he opened it.   
His jaw dropped.  
It was his name on the screen, his records, his background. Everything except a few hastily taken pictures of him in his mask, moving after a kill. But it was all here. On _Gavin’s_ computer.  
A strange feeling filled him; something that was mostly rage, but there was touches of betrayal and sadness.   
Gavin came into the room, two cups of steaming tea, and winced as soon as Ryan whirled on him, anger etching into his features.  
“What is this?” he hissed, and Gavin began stuttering nervously.  
“It’s not- I swear it’s not what you think, Ryan, listen-”  
“Gavin _what the hell is this_?” he roared, and Gavin was startled so badly that he managed to drop the cups, hot tea spilling everywhere on the rug and shards of ceramic scattering.   
“Ryan, _please_ -”  
“I _trusted_ you, dammit!” He pulled a pistol and aimed it at Gavin, who let out a quiet whimper. “And then I find out you’re a _hitman_? And you’re targeting _me_? How long has this been going on, Gavin?”  
“Ryan, you have to understand, I’m not-”  
“Was it all a fucking act? The camera work, the niceness, the jokes, the dates? I fell for you, Gavin, I fucking thought this was going to work out! I was so happy and you fucking betrayed it, you broke it, Gavin, jesus- was it all a lie?”  
 _“Ryan_!” Gavin screeched, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. “Never! None of it! Look closer, Ryan, I didn’t kill any of those people- you did.”  
A terrible feeling went through him as he went through the pictures in his mind.  
“You’re only on the computer because I needed to make sure you were the right person for the job. No one believed me- so I got your info. I contacted you, and I hired you.”  
“Oh god,” Ryan whispered, lowering his gun.  
“And I didn’t expect to move in, and I didn’t expect to actually meet you, and I didn’t mean to fall in love _all over again_ because dammit, Ryan, I loved you as Vagabond and I love you as you and-”  
Gavin choked up suddenly, wiping his eyes and lowering himself onto the couch, shuddering in quiet sobs. Ryan was too busy being frozen as the puzzle pieces fell together and it all clicked.  
Gavin was his employer.  
Gavin had liked him before all of this.  
Gavin was not trying to kill him  
“I- I have to go-” Ryan muttered, but he wasn’t sure Gavin even heard him as he quickly fled out the door and disappeared into his own apartment, the door slamming behind him and the building going silent.

* * *

 

Gavin had fucked up, big time.  
Geoff was frustrated with him for losing their merc- _but he ended up so much more_ , Gavin had thought to himself when he’d left that day.   
His gaze flicked to 323 before he opened his own door and closed it softly behind him, dropping his pack on the ground and slumping down onto the couch. He stared blankly at the TV for a while, not bothering to move.  
He didn’t feel like it.  
He’d been planning on telling Ryan eventually, maybe when it was late and they’d joke about it- _remember when I used to hire you to kill people for me? Good times, right?_ \- but that wasn’t happening now.  
Gavin had always been a bit too invested in the whole murderer for hire thing and when he’d gone out to find someone who would damn well do it, he’d found Ryan on his third try.  
The description was perfect- extra for if it needed to be framed or anything of the sorts, but Gavin didn’t need that, he just needed these people gone. Suspicions would only go up if it didn’t look like random murders, and every once in a while Gavin had Ryan kill some unrelated criminals to throw people off the scent.  
Not once when he first hired him did he expect to get closer to him and to start actually liking him. The flirting was kind of unnecessary and strange at first but it worked for them. Just jokes. Just fun.  
Just until Gavin actually got a glimpse at how much of a _f_ _ucking_ dork Ryan was. And Gavin decided he could see himself in a relationship with this guy not like that’d ever happen because this was professional, dammit, why did this seem so much more complicated.  
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Gavin had had to move from his old building to a new one.  
And then he’d run into Ryan, covered in blood, and things seemed to go downhill from there.  
Well. Not downhill, mostly uphill for a while- because now Gavin had the chance to actually fall in love with Ryan- with more than just his personality- his looks, his voice, his smile. But it’d been a mistake, and now everything was wrong, and _oh, god_ , what does he do now?  
Ryan had to have hated him by now. Gavin didn’t even care about getting Ryan back on his side for the job, he just wanted someone to talk to, dammit, and he wanted Ryan.

He glanced over to his computer and an idea came to his head.  
Quickly, he scrambled over- Ryan’s skype was logged out, of course, but there was another option.   
  
_Ryan-_  
 _Look. I’m sorry. I know you probably honestly bloody hate me right now and I really didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear. I was gonna tell you eventually._  
 _Please, just, email me when you get the chance, yeah? Or something? I want to explain everything. Please don’t hate me._  
 _Sorry._  
  
He found the printer on the wireless connection he was looking for and sent it there quickly before he gave it any thought or before he got nervous.  
He finally slipped away from the computer and gave a quick, upset glance to the door, then disappeared into the bedroom and slumped forward onto his bed and fell asleep.

* * *

This cycle continued for a few weeks. Gavin, upon receiving no answer, wrote another letter. And another. And another. Sent flowers. Sent cakes. Various little gifts.  
There was never any replies- and lately, not any kills. Ryan was very clearly taking a break. If someone were to look in his apartment, they’d see him sitting there in the midst of various printed letters from Gavin, looking somewhat lost and very embarrassed.

He’d been the one who fucked up, he thought to himself. It was never Gavin’s fault. He was somewhat stupid for running out so quickly without an explanation- he didn’t hate Gavin at all. If anything, it made everything ten times easier to realize he’d been crushing on the same person for quite some time. There was another part of him that he didn’t want to exactly face. A part of him that found the entire idea of Gavin enjoying that he killed people exciting- as if Gavin were into that.  
 _  
This is stupid_ , he thought to himself. _Vaguely creepy, too._

“I’m being an idiot,” Ryan hissed, getting up and placing all the letters on his coffee table. “I just need to talk to him. It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”  
He got up and went for the door, grabbing his leather jacket and mask on instinct. He looked at them in his hands and sighed. “This is your fault,” he muttered, then shook his head and dropped them on the couch.  
Ryan went out into the hall and was shocked to see the door to the other apartment wide open, various bits of furniture strewn about and the entire place empty.  
“Gavin?” he called out tentatively, looking around at the eeriness of the apartment. “Gav?”  
He looked over to the computer and saw something blinking onscreen- an error message, he noticed and sat down in the computer chair to read it.  
  
 **PRINTER IS OUT OF INK.**

He laughed awkwardly, noticing that yes, it was his printer it’d been trying to send something too, and then he frowned as he saw the document it’d been trying to print.  
It was fairly long, a page at least, and Ryan noticed his name at the top.  
He clicked and began to read.  
  
 _Dear Ryan,_  
 _I guess it’s a bit too late for anything and I know it’s really bloody redundant but I’m sorry. I’m honest to god sorry. I never meant to hurt you or make you lose trust in me and honestly I’m upset with myself for ever doing so. I really didn’t mean it, Ryan. I’m not the person you think I am._  
 _It wasn’t any type of ruse or anything if that’s what you think. And I know you know that I’m not just a cinematographer- that wasn’t just a cover, I actually did that stuff. But, again. It was cover too._  
 _I work for Geoff Ramsey- I’m sure you know him, he’s a huge crimelord, and a year or two ago he got into a huge turf war with some douchebags on the other side of the city. They were really messing with everything and Geoff got really pissed off and he needed them dead. But none of us are competent enough to do any of Geoff’s dirty work- so he assigned me to find a good merc._  
 _You were the only one with a 100% success rate. So I decided to check you out. Test you, I guess, not like you needed testing, but still. And then you got it perfectly. Geoff was happy, which, you know, I was happy, so I kept it up._

_And then we started doing whatever the hell we were doing and it was weird but it was fun and I just had so much fun and god, I really liked you a lot more than I should have. I might have fallen in love with you, if I had actually known you better._   
_And then I suddenly had to move due to some terrible thing- Geoff kept insisting, and Michael- you remember Michael- was furious, and they kept saying that it was fine, and I’d be fine, but I know it wasn’t. I think it was because they found me. I think they were going to kill me because I knew everything about all of our enemies and I don’t think they liked that a bit. I’m pretty sure I was going to die. No one answered me when I asked._   
_So they moved me here. It was safe, it was secure, it had good wifi. Essential, of course. A nice neighborhood. I was expecting to just continue on with my life._   
_But you were there. And it was just- right._   
_Because I wanted to tell you, I promise. I did! But Geoff kept saying no and I knew you’d think less of me and I knew there was a chance that this would happen. I was so scared. I liked you, Ryan, I liked you a lot._   
_I wanted to tell you so badly but I didn’t want you to leave. There are so many reasons to leave, honestly. And when you did find out, you left. Like I knew you would._   
_I expected nothing less, though. I tried to apologize. Guess it was pointless._   
_But still, I’m sorry. I did like you. A lot. Loved you, a bit._   
_I think I’ve said it enough._   
_Sorry._   
_I’ll stay out of your way._

 

Ryan sat back in the chair a little bit, processing the information- Gavin was gone. Gavin was gone because Gavin believed it was his fault but it wasn’t and fuck fuck fuck, Ryan, you fucked up big time.  
He quickly went back to the computer and began to look- very quickly- through the hard drive for any trace of him, any little bit of Gavin ever being there, or maybe something he could find him by.   
There was nothing. The computer was wiped completely clean, save for the document and the error message. Frustrated, he pounded a fist on the desk and growled out. “Dammit,” he whispered, and placed his head in his hands.   
“Dammit.”

* * *

It was lonely in the new apartment.

Michael lived two doors down from him, with Lindsay, and Ray lived upstairs, next to Meg, who was a nice enough girl. He liked her- they were friends, but that was it. That was all that it’d be. Michael told him to move on, and Ray was sympathetic.  
Gavin just couldn’t get over Ryan, though. It’d been two months. And he busied himself in workloads and he buried himself in every type of distraction. Geoff and Jack were mildly worried for him, but he didn’t dare to tell about his issues. It wasn’t worth it. And besides, nothing was going to change if he talked about it. He’d made the mistake. It was his problem to fix it, and he’d done what he could.  
In the meantime, Geoff had used his allies and pulled a few strings in order to get some other mercs to take care of his problems in their little war. With Gavin’s quickness came the destruction of the opposing force. Geoff, despite his worries for his pseudo son, was ecstatic with progress, and it was clear that the destruction of the other gang was imminent.   
“Take a break, bud,” Geoff told him one day, and Gavin had never been more relieved.  
MIchael and Lindsay had tried to drag him out of the house but he resisted against them, making an excuse about not feeling too well- _bullshit_ , Michael had muttered, but they’d left him alone.  
He went to bed and took a long nap. Longer than he expected, actually. He woke up at around 8 PM and noticed that Michael and Lindsay had returned, and left him chinese food. He picked it up, made his way to the couch, and grabbed the remote, going to flick on the TV, before hearing police sirens.

“Weird,” he murmured, but turned the set on anyways, and lost himself in some old movie and other terrible reruns.

A week later, Gavin discovered that one of the opposing informants had been killed.  
One of Geoff’s mercs approached them later that evening and explained he’d never finished his jobs- the target had already been dead. Gavin showed the man a picture, and he nodded slowly.   
“Yeah. He was my target.”  
“Must have had another grudge against him then,” Gavin muttered, and forgot about it.   
But the cycle continued. An informant here, a supplier there. And then, suddenly, it was done.

Every single member of the other gang was dead, and half the time, they didn’t even know who the killer was for half the men. No one seemed bothered except for Gavin, whose complaints were ignored as the other members of the team celebrated without consequence.  
But their hacker spent the entire night pouring over the possibilities. There was no way it was coincidence that the _exact_ members of that gang had been killed in the way that they had. Each one was deliberate, and only those members. That was it.   
Gavin fell asleep on his research and woke up just plain confused. Stumped, he gave up on his search, and spent the rest of the day with Michael and Lindsay and Meg, laughing and just being generally happy about what happened.

* * *

 

Meg had flirted with him the first week they’d known each other, and he’d simply smiled and explained that he wasn’t interested- and, very nicely, she’d accepted that, and they’d become very close friends. However, the guy down the hall didn’t seem to get that message. Gavin took to avoiding him, but he was incredibly persistent.

His name was Darren and Gavin could not get him off his back- it was like the other guy knew everything about him. When he woke up, when he went to bed- a couple of times, he’d hinted that he knew how Gavin worked, but he had nothing to do with any gangs. Clean record completely.  
Gavin was fed up, and one morning, when he saw Darren outside of his door, he just didn’t leave the house. Darren knew, and kept knocking on the door, and eventually Gavin was done. “Just leave me alone, okay?” he screamed through the door. The knocking stopped, then persisted for another half hour.  
Gavin fell asleep tired and pissed off- and when he woke up, Darren was gone.   
Completely gone. As in missing.  
And then the next day, someone else from the building went missing.  
And then again.  
And again.  
Geoff made an offhanded comment about how weird it seemed- only certain people that they’d all heard about, none of the ones they’d never interacted with. It was brushed off and, once again, they just forgot. Gavin didn’t care and Jack assured them they were all fine, so they just- left it. Continued on with their lives like it was fine.  
The news the next week showed all the victims, side by side, with their names and where they bodies had been found. As he watched, something registered in the back of Gavin’s mind, and he waited until that night to actually look at his suspicions.  
  
Darren had been bothering him. Darren had been killed.  
Alicia from two floors below had tried to sell him drugs. Alicia had been killed.  
Sandra pushed him down the stairs deliberately once and he’d broken his wrist.  
Brendon had keyed his car.  
Kyle had stolen his car.  
Dead. Dead. Dead.  
And Gavin was beginning to see a pattern- anyone he’d ever met that he wasn’t inherently close to that had ever messed with him or pissed him off in any way was now _dead_. Random strangers that had pestered him on the street for blocks. People in bars he’d talked to that had flirted endlessly with him- and also had tried to drug him (he’d seen their quick fingers on the rim of his glass every time). This wasn’t any bloody coincidence. This was an act by someone who was intensely possessive of him and probably very obsessed with him.  
Startled in this discovery, he let out a laugh in front of his dim laptop screen, shutting it in shock, and quickly he got up and placed it on the coffee table, glancing out at the clock. It was too late tonight- maybe tomorrow.  
  
The next night, Gavin ended up in the alleyway right beside his apartment, arms crossed as he waited.  
And there was the perpetrator in all his bloody glory, literally. The streetlights at the figure’s back cast the entire front side of him in shadows, but Gavin could already tell just by the stance and the body shape exactly who it was and who he was dealing with.  
There was a long, awkward pause where Gavin just stared at the other, until finally Ryan reached up and pulled off his mask, taking a few nervous steps towards the younger man. “What are you _doing_ out here?” he hissed, reaching out and grabbing Gavin’s shoulders. “You’re gonna get hurt!”  
“Obviously not,” Gavin hissed right back. “You’ve been making sure of that, haven’t you?”  
Ryan flinched, quickly releasing his hold on Gavin and brushing his hair from his face. “...sorry.”  
“For what?”  
“...overstepping my boundaries? Being kind of way too overprotective of you? Pretty much stalking you to find out where you lived? Scaring you off in the first place? Fucking up our entire good relationship because I was too scared to admit that I was the one who fucked up in the first place and that I should have come to you right after you sent the first letter but I was too afraid of messing up completely and losing you?”  
Out of breath, Ryan stopped, looking away from Gavin and huffing out, shrugging. “So. Yeah. All of that.”  
There was a long pause in which neither of them said anything, and Ryan started feeling uneasy about the whole situation.  And then a hand brushed against his cheek and he looked back to find Gavin right in front of him, smiling kindly and reaching up to hold his face.  
“I think we’re both idiots,” Gavin muttered, dropping his hands to Ryan’s shoulders. “Because I thought- well, I’m sure you know what I thought. I didn’t know what to think about it because you weren’t responding. I thought you were pissed. Guess we were both wrong, huh?”  
Ryan laughed and reached up to grab Gavin’s face as well, touching their foreheads together. “We’re the worst.”  
“You’re worse, though.”  
“Why am  _I_  worse?”  
“You kill people!”  
“I do _not_!”  
“Ryan, that is the worst argument ever, you killed like 20 people in the last month just to protect me.”  
“Shows you how much I care.”  
“Aw. Lovely Ryan. You love me so.”  
“I’d kill an entire gang for you.”  
“You’ve already done that.”  
“Oh, shit, yeah I did. I love you a _lot._ ”

* * *

 

Everything worked out in the end.  
Ryan got an all clear from Geoff to become an official part of their little ‘crew’- the rest of the members were a little put off by the way that he would kill anyone without any hesitation, but they were pleased to discover that he was the one to kill the other gang not so long ago. He found a nice little spot with them, pleased and generally excited to be helping them out.   
He was _more_ excited to be able to drop the merc job once and for all, seeing as doing any heists with the crew payed him plenty. The only people he killed were on the orders of Geoff. And Gavin. Of course Gavin.  
That was probably the best part- more time with Gavin, no secrets being held, no holding back on anything. They stuck together and worked incredibly well as a team. Ryan honestly couldn’t be happier with his job. He loved Gavin, Gavin loved him, and there were no more mistakes between the two of them on who was wrong or right (unless it was the coin argument. Everyone fucking hated that coin argument).  
This was good, Ryan thought to himself, looking at the group he now worked with.  
Everything was good.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments, kudos, like or dislike it? tell me what you think, here or on ryanjhaywood.tumblr.com


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